Mynxee took her Pod Pal to EVE Vegas and was kind enough to share pictures! As a result I’ve received a number of really nice comments on Twitter and new interest from other players, all of which made me blush like crazy and squee like a little girl. ♥ Pod Pal Mynxee even got to meet CCP Guard! That’s really awesome. :D

If you’ve been waiting for a chance to find out when you can get a Pod Pal of your very own, there’s a new info page about them up there in the menu. Check it out!

In May I was working on crocheting the second test for my Pod Palls doll. Beta 2.0 was going to be more detailed, potentially able to stand on its own, and would have been a bit larger than Beta 1.0. In the end I scrapped that test as it was taking too long and I was getting frustrated over trying to work in the extra details. Possibly I’ll give it another go in the future. Instead, I decided to move on to doing my first official Pod Pal, for Mynxee!

Some players like to collect things, particularly when those things are items which represent something they are passionate about. When it comes to EVE, the playerbase gobbles up official merchandise from CCP whenever it can. Many corporations, alliances, and coalitions have also made buttons, armbands, patches, coins, medals, pens, mousepads, mugs, and all manner of other kind of promotional materials for their members. Then there are the individual players who frequently make their talents available to create fabulous artwork, videos, logos, tshirts, posters, paintings, sketches, and more by request.

On February 29, 2016, CCP discontinued the EVElopedia. Unfortunately for some players, the wiki contained the only record of their adventures in New Eden.

The following article was originally authored by Carl Marsalis. I am republishing the content with his permission so that these character histories are not lost.

Louis deGuerre

Louis deGaulle was born on Gallente Prime in the Gallente Federation, the empire of the free, where you have freedom of religion, freedom of speech…and freedom to starve. At a young age he was abandoned by his mother on the dark streets in the shadow of the stratoscrapers that define the Gallente cities. Like many other disregarded citizens he survived alone on the refuse of those more fortunate until he was arrested and enrolled in a Youth Reclamation Program. When he was tested in the camp school his analytical skills were noticed and eventually he was enrolled in the Federation Navy. There he became a capsuleer and ventured out into the universe. In gratitude to the Federation Navy for the change in his miserable life he assumed the surname deGuerre, meaning war in the now archaic language of the original founders of the Gallente Federation.

Using the skills he acquired in his studies he hacked into the Federal Administration’s DNA records trying to find out if he had any family. He discovered that his mother and father were long dead due to substance abuse, but that two other children matching his DNA pattern had once been arrested as well. His brother and sister had been sired by other men than his dead father. After their release from custody their DNA matches never appeared again. This meant that they were either dead or living in another empire. He continued to search for them with little success, as all he had were two police ID photos of angrily scowling youths and their names, Hanako Nakamura and Batukhan Kiyat.

Reschard V was once a fertile world, lush with life, a green jewel nestled away in low-security Placid. Millions of people called it their home. They had built a successful agrarian society they were proud of, and had lived peacefully for generations without the need of any military.

This article was originally posted on October 12, 2014. I recently submitted it for consideration to the WarDec Project being undertaken by members of the EVE community. Today, Crossing Zebras published Lore Wars, which posits some very interesting ideas about how the war dec mechanic could be changed, partially inspired by my post below. Go read it! Well worth the time. Thanks to Jason Quixos for the shout out! ♥

And by “rages on”, what I actually mean is, “ILF got some in-game notifications about it but we’re ignoring them and going about our usual business”. Public-Enemy dec’d IPI for the second time in as many months just so they could shoot the customs offices ILF owned in the Placid hisec island. Power to them I guess, if hisec structure grinding floats their boat. If they (or their client, if there is one) wanted the offices that badly they could have just offered to buy them from us to save time and ammo. We weren’t making any ISK off them anyway. :p I shrug and hope they enjoyed shooting them.

I recognize that wars (“lol griefer” or otherwise) are part of PVP in EVE. I chose to give my time to this universe where people can destroy my stuff, even in hisec, whenever they feel like it. IPI by design is smack in the middle of one of the hottest PVP areas of Gallente space simply because of Intaki. That’s just how it is, and it isn’t going to change. After all, we wouldn’t be the Intaki Prosperity Initiative if we moved somewhere else. Everyone will always know where to find us. We will always be a target of one kind or another because of where we live and who we are.

Will we ever be an “elite” PVP alliance? Thousands of kills in a month? Wicked ISK efficiency? Probably not. Sure, I want to be a capable PVP pilot (yes, I know that means I actually have to undock!) and have people in my alliance who are capable at it too. I want my guys to have good fights and enjoy combat. But IPI being able to unzip some crazy PVP e-peen? That’s not why I play EVE.

Since November I have been thinking about making some (more) changes in the Intaki Liberation Front. Although I am the kind of person who enjoys being in a comfortable place where the status quo is stable and any curves have plateaued, leaving me to be free to spend my energy on other things, for ILF I think we are not quite there yet. There’s room for more improvement, even if it might be time-consuming and challenging. So for my corp (and alliance), it’s time to shake things up a little. Or a lot. (At least for us.)

Intaki V – Moon 5 – Astral Mining Inc. Refinery

Leisel Anteida tapped on her datapad, then turned it toward Sakaane with a smile as she sat down on the edge of one of the chairs opposite the Suresha’s desk.

Sakaane leaned back and tried to give the datapad a serious look, but out of the corner of her eye she could see Leisel’s knee bouncing. The speed of the bouncing increased the longer the silence stretched. “How are you settling in?”

“Oh! Good. Great actually! Coming to lowsec wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.” Leisel smiled shyly but her eyes glittered from behind wispy bangs. “The girls back in Amygnon are still sending me messages weekly though, asking if I’ve been shot up by Serpentis yet, can you believe that?”

Recently I did a bunch of hauling for ILF and for myself, mostly to consolidate assets and get organized. This took me to various locations across New Eden, including a few systems deep into Domain where I’ve never been before.

Although the backdrop of space changed color the farther I travelled, all I really got to see were gates, jump tunnels, warp tunnels, the bright glowy butt end of my ship, and little triangle/house/turtle icons zipping past. There were a few interesting moments but for the most part these were uneventful journeys. Sure I could have hired someone to fetch all those cargo loads for me but having not been in game much recently due to offline stuff, I had a need to do it all myself, to feel useful.

Every so often a celestial beacon would show up on the Overview. Since it was unlikely I’d be coming this way again, I right-clicked and chose Show Info, the idea being to read a little about the landmark or whatever it happened to be as I was traversing the system.

Instead, Show Info was kind enough to tell me what a beacon is. Great. Thanks.

So on I went, system after system, with quite honestly very little to do or look at.